1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to electronic messaging. More specifically, the present invention relates to systems and methods for managing the delivery of electronic messages.
2. Background Technology
Many people and businesses have found electronic messaging, such as e-mailing and instant messaging, a convenient method of communication because sending and receiving electronic messages can be easy.
Unfortunately, the ease with which electronic messages may be generated and sent has led to the development of unsolicited bulk electronic messages, better known as “spam.” Unsolicited electronic messages come from a large spectrum of different sources and often include commercial advertisements, political messaging, and other undesirable content including pornographic solicitations.
To many users, it seems that the number of unsolicited messages that they receive increases daily. Receiving unsolicited electronic messages is frustrating for many users because they must sort through each electronic message they receive. If they do not sort through their messages regularly, the number of unsolicited electronic messages may soon outnumber the desired electronic messages and make it difficult for a user to find certain electronic messages. Users are understandably frustrated that they must waste time sorting through unsolicited electronic messages that they receive daily. Even if simply deleting the unsolicited electronic messages, users can waste significant amounts of time.
For these reasons, users need a way to successfully prevent unwanted or unsolicited electronic messages from being delivered. Some attempts have been made to allow users to filter out unwanted and/or unsolicited electronic messages. One of the most successful methods for preventing the delivery of unwanted e-mail involves delivering e-mail only after a challenge-response process has been successfully completed. In one conventional challenge-response process, a recipient e-mail server, upon receiving an e-mail message from a sender, transmits a challenge message to the sender. The challenge message is designed to be answered manually by a person, rather than automatically by a computer or machine. For example, a challenge message could ask the sender to perform some action by providing input that may be easily done by a person, but that may not be easily done by a computer. Accordingly, because it is impractical for bulk-mailers to personally respond to challenge messages, such senders typically cannot complete the challenge-response process. Thus, because the challenge-response process is not completed, the bulk unsolicited electronic message is not delivered.
While conventional challenge-response processes have successfully reduced unsolicited e-mail, they have not been able to respond well in situations in which an attempt is made by a user to send an e-mail to himself or herself. A person may wish to send a self-addressed e-mail for a variety of reasons. In some situations, a person may have multiple e-mail addresses and/or associated e-mail accounts (such as a work e-mail account, a personal e-mail account, and the like) among which a person may wish to send e-mail. For example, rather than coming to their workplace on a weekend to revise an electronic file (such as a MICROSOFT WORD™ document), persons may wish to e-mail that electronic file from their work e-mail account to a personal e-mail account that is accessible from home, allowing the person to retrieve and revise the electronic file at home. Also, when at home, persons may remember an important commitment and may send a reminder e-mail from their personal e-mail account to their work e-mail account, allowing them to see the reminder after returning to their workplace.
A person may wish to send a self-addressed e-mail to maintain a historical record of e-mail. For example, some e-mail systems will store a large number of incoming messages, but will only store a relatively limited number of outgoing or “sent” messages. Thus, after a certain number of sent messages is reached, these e-mail systems will automatically delete the oldest sent messages without prompting a user. Accordingly, with such systems, users may add their e-mail address to the list of recipients of an e-mail so that the users will receive a copy of the e-mail as an incoming message—which is less likely to be automatically deleted. As a further example, some websites provide a form into which a user may send an e-mail by entering the user's e-mail address into a “From:” field and a recipient's e-mail address into a “To:” field. Such websites typically offer to forward a copy of the e-mail to the e-mail address in the “From:” field—allowing the user to receive a copy for the user's personal records. Of course, a person may wish to send a self-addressed e-mail for a variety of other reasons.
Whatever a person's reason for sending a self-addressed e-mail may be, the person will not want to receive a challenge message in response to sending an e-mail to himself or herself. Indeed, receiving such challenge messages may be frustrating and confusing for the person—who may not understand why a challenge message has been sent in this context. Further, such challenge messages may waste the resources of the person's recipient e-mail system and the resources of the person's sender e-mail system.
Equally frustrating and confusing situations may arise from spam e-mail having a “spoofed” sender's e-mail address. “Spoofing” includes the practice of making an electronic message (such as an e-mail) falsely appear to come from a particular sender (such as an e-mail address). For example, spammers may send (to a recipient's e-mail address) a spam e-mail that appears to come from the recipient's e-mail address. In response to receiving this spam email, a challenge-response system may send a challenge message to the apparent sender of the message—that is, the recipient. When receiving a challenge message in this situation, a recipient may be confused because the recipient will not remember sending the particular e-mail associated with the challenge message. After wasting the effort to respond to the challenge message, the person may be especially frustrated to learn that the message is merely spam.